


Performance

by inelegantly (Lir)



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 15:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5503607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lir/pseuds/inelegantly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she's on stage, Ryo feels like she's at the center of the universe, like there is nowhere else she is meant to be. When she and Koyuki stumble into a dive restaurant at the play, she unexpectedly feels much the same about where they have ended up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Performance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xenoglossy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenoglossy/gifts).



> Ryo is one of my favorite N cards, and I hope that I have done her justice.

* * *

Ryo is sitting in the third row from the front, when the next actress takes the stage.

She has yet to throw off the guise of the noble prince she'd donned for her own audition, can still feel the electric buzz of his skin layering atop her own. It had felt exactly right, being that person, speaking his lines, even beneath the harsh light of the fluorescents that are never used during a show. Satisfaction with her performance seeps through Ryo's veins like warm honey, relaxing her in the face of tryouts for the female lead. 

The next actress takes the stage, and she's small and slight and a little bit frightened. The stage seems set to swallow her up, but then her face composes itself, and Ryo sees beneath it the steady determination that is only born from hard work.

Even before Shirase Koyuki speaks her first line, Ryo knows that she is the one Ryo will be performing against.

* * *

It's late enough, when the last play of the run lets out, that all the respectable restaurants are closed.

Ryo holds the door for Koyuki, her fingers curled around the edge, her other arm swept before her chest in the faintest pantomime of a bow. It's one of those twenty-four hour places, a little bit gloomy, a little bit shady, and Ryo can feel the way the wood of the door has gone slightly pitted with age underneath her fingertips.

Koyuki doesn't look at the dingy exterior, or the way only half of the sign above the lintel is lit up. She pauses on the threshold, the toes of her heels tucked back from the entrance, and gives Ryo a ladylike little nod before sweeping the skirts of her costume dress in through the door. 

Ryo follows her, watching the way Koyuki's bustle bobs when she walks, and almost doesn't realize she's smiling. 

They place their orders at the counter, Ryo standing politely by while Koyuki ponders over the menu. Her head is ducked, her small face trained on the words and her mouth pursed in with thoughtful concentration. Her hand migrates to her cheek, tapping idly at her face as she weighs the possibility of oily noodles against greasy dumplings, of dishes that are fried, and stir-fried, and seared. 

The energy from the play is still coursing through Ryo, warm underneath her skin and electric in her veins, her princely role in the performance still draped across her shoulders like a forgotten cloak. She wants to feel sorry that she's brought Yuki-chan to such a dubious eatery, but she watches Koyuki fidget and hum as she considers the food and something in her can only ask, is there anywhere else in the world they were more meant to be than here? 

When Koyuki makes her decision, Ryo smoothly follows it with her own order, pulling out her wallet to pay before Koyuki can say a word. 

For a moment they only look at each other, Ryo with her fingers in her billfold, Koyuki with her head tilted like a bird, and it only occurs to Ryo for a moment that perhaps Koyuki will decline the courtesy, and elect to pay for herself. But her eyes are soft as they settle upon Ryo's face, and after that protracted instance of _looking,_ Koyuki glances down and away without a single complaint. 

They pick a table out together. 

The entire restaurant is shadowed and dim, butter-yellow lights strung overhead illuminating it by only half measures. The tables are all too close, shoved in against each other to make the most of limited space and leaving only the most minimal of aisles between their edges. Koyuki weaves through them fluidly, twisting her body hither and back, moving with the dancer's grace that Ryo knows best from the stage. 

There are only a few other patrons in the place, seated on high stools at the counter before the window. They're staring out into the night, never mind that the only thing those dingy panes of glass are showing is a watery reflection of the restaurant, is the image of customer's faces as they look vacantly on at themselves. Koyuki steers away from them, moving toward the back of the room with patient grace. 

Ryo pulls Koyuki's chair out for her, when she reaches it.

Koyuki sweeps her dress underneath herself, and takes the invitation that's offered her. 

"Thank you," Koyuki says, as she glances up at Ryo with her head tilted back.

"Anything for milady," Ryo says, so that Koyuki breaks into a smile, and laughs, and so the casual chivalry settles over Ryo with the familiarity of any other well-practiced role. 

She can't help it — acting comes as naturally to her as breathing, performance as good as a language that she speaks with the fluency of a native tongue. Not everyone understands that this is what Ryo finds familiar and ordinary, that what may seem like an act is no less real for the charm and polish. Koyuki understands these things better than most. 

"They really liked us, don't you think?" Koyuki asks, as Ryo settles into the seat across from her. "They clapped so long!" 

"The joy of the audience is an actor's best reward," Ryo says. "And after all of your hard work, you — we, all of us — deserved nothing less." 

"I'm not the only one who worked hard!" Koyuki laughs, then glances away. There's a faraway look in her eyes as she stares across the restaurant, and she, at least, is seeing something more complicated than her own face reflected back at her. "Everyone in the company works hard, and most of them have been working at it far longer than me. I know that you have. It's really the least that I can do to keep up." 

Ryo gives that a deferential moment of consideration, allows a beat to pass in recognition that yes, everyone signed on for the performance had given it their all. Then she cracks a smile of her own, a subtle upward twist of her lips, and shakes her head in gentle disagreement. 

"It was more than you realize. You kept up with the other performers, many of them more experienced on the stage. Isn't that something worth congratulating, all for itself?" 

"Ryo-chan!" Koyuki exclaims. 

But she doesn't deny it, only stares back at Ryo with the disbelief present in her voice and the acceptance vivid on her face, her expression softening over top the determination that Ryo has become more than familiar with. Delicate though Koyuki might look, there's steel beneath her satin and lace. 

Ryo can't help but admire her for it.

* * *

It's later still, when Ryo and Koyuki exit the restaurant, so late that it isn't even the same day any more.

Though the food was greasy and cheap, it's filling, settling in their bellies and warming Ryo up with a different sort of contentment than the one she always feels after a show. That has receded to the background — already but a memory, like a glimpse of something seen from out of the corner of her eye. 

What's present and real is the taste of hot noodles lingering on the back of her tongue, is the grip of Koyuki's slender fingers, tucked against the crook of Ryo's arm when she offers it before leading Koyuki out into the night.

"You were lovely on stage," Ryo says, though she knows she's paid Koyuki compliments enough over dinner. 

She knew that Koyuki would be, right from the start, from that earliest moment in Koyuki's audition when she'd transformed from a scared girl to a composed young noblewoman. Right from the start, Ryo knew. 

"Thank you," Koyuki says, polite as ever, "but that's nothing, compared to the presence you have." 

"I disagree. An actor is only as good as his contemporaries — if I commanded attention on the stage, that is as much in credit to having you standing across from me, as it is to those efforts I've made on my own." 

Even in the dimness that surrounds them, Ryo can see Koyuki blush. 

"You give me far too much credit," Koyuki insists. 

"I give you credit where credit is due. I enjoy performing with you. I wouldn't have this same experience with anybody else." 

Koyuki's fingers tighten against Ryo's forearm, squeezing suddenly tight. Her gaze is trained on Ryo's face and in that moment she's a noblewoman again, regal, too intent to look away. 

"I mean what I say," Ryo tells her, more softly than before. 

"And I mean what I say, too. You are breathtaking on stage, and it makes me want to be just as impressive beside you." 

Ryo knows, in that moment, that she'll be performing against Shirase Koyuki again.

* * *


End file.
